Aksai also made a mental note not to visit the Purple Poison Marshland.
This region was filled with inherent dangers from vicious and poisonous demon beasts, and plants.
A dense amount of purple poison mist and water covered various parts of the region. In fact, it was said that the Purple Poison Marshland was the reason why the Purple River was purple and slightly poisonous in nature.
If the Lakir family had retreated to this region, it was understandable that not even the Foundation Building Experts would pursue them recklessly.
Aksai could also guess that the Lakir family always had an exit strategy lined up in the Purple Poison Marshland in case their demonic practices were made public. It was very dangerous for Aksai to even get near the region by mistake.
‘What is the misery of the Spirit cultivators and mortals in the two counties has to do with me? I’m just a simple Spirit farmer who likes to stay low-key and have good times with my maids every once in a while.
I’ll simply run away from the place when things become tough here and wait for the storm to pass,’ Aksai thought to himself and smiled inwardly.
Even though he had decided to distance himself from the matters related to the destruction of the two Foundation Building families, Aksai found it imperative to know everything there was about them and the major incidents that took place.
As such, he didn’t disturb Jainam’s flow and acted as a good listener.
Jainam was shocked by how calm Aksai remained even after hearing that the Lakir family had unleashed the blood fiends on the region belonging to the two counties.
However, he assumed that a Foundation Building Expert would indeed be privy to some knowledge that a Spirit Refiner like him wouldn’t have.
Adjusting his posture in the chair, Jainam placed both his hands on his lap before continuing in a serious voice.
“My lord, the blood fiends were more powerful than their ordinary Spirit Refining counterparts. They easily killed and plundered many small and medium-sized, well-established Spirit cultivation families.
The more they killed, the more blood they drew, and the more corpses they left in their wake. The Blood Bakshi cultivators would even rob the corpses of their opponents after killing them. When these corpses made their comeback after a few days, it was revealed that they had been turned into blood fiends or flesh fiends,” Jainam explained carefully.
What Jainam didn’t know was that the grimmer he painted the blood fiends to be, the more excited Aksai became about studying the Blood Fiend Manual. It was as if Aksai was witnessing live examples of the concepts he had roughly read about in the book.
“What more can you tell me about these blood fiends?” Aksai asked as he finished the lamb shank in his hand. He then proceeded to have some lamb stew and rice as he listened to Jainam’s explanation.
“The blood fiends were very bloodthirsty and cruel,” Jainam replied promptly, his eyes shining with a peculiar light of trepidation as he spoke.
“They didn’t care about their own safety and attacked indiscriminately. Some of the blood fiends were partially alive, while others were completely turned into undead.
There were some blood fiends who were nothing but humanoid masses of blood, refined after killing many Spirit Refining cultivators and mixing their blood.
These blood fiends were even more vicious than their predecessors. They could enter a live person’s body and control them. These controlled Spirit Refining cultivators infiltrated many organizations before they started killing and plundering when someone least expected it.
The Lakir family clan members who were in charge of these blood fiends and flesh fiends dominated the Wilben family’s forces after they made their comeback,” Jainam spoke in a grave tone.
“So the Wilben family couldn’t handle the Lakir family’s retaliation after they released blood fiends into the two counties?” Aksai asked as he savored the taste of Spirit rice mixed with delicious and spicy lamb stew.
“That’s right, my lord,” Jainam nodded at Aksai as he spoke with an unhurried tone.
“The Lakir family also used the members of their own clan to make special types of blood fiends after their deaths. They even robbed the graves of their ancestors and created flying blood fiends.
The patriarch of the Lakir Family, Loren Lakir, even went further and robbed the grave of a deceased Foundation Building Expert who had recently died somewhere else.
He created a Foundation Building-level flying blood fiend from that corpse and launched a sneak attack on the Wilben family’s patriarch, Mantoyi Wilben, killing him within half a day.
The Wilben family members were attacked by the blood fiends from every direction. The more the killing took place, the stronger the Blood Bakshis grew. The last few months were the time of anarchy,” Jainam sighed and looked outside the window in contemplation.
Aksai took his time to learn more about the major incidents that took place after the Lakir family’s counterattack.
Apparently, the Purple River Sect elders became active after the destruction of the Wilben family. The sect sent its disciples to eradicate the chaos and establish order within Wuyum and Ragui counties.
The blood fiends and the members of the Lakir family who controlled them were either completely destroyed or forced to retreat into the Purple Poison Marshlands where they licked their wounds in grievances. The remnant force of the Lakir family was completely suppressed.
The inheritance grounds that were once controlled by the joint efforts of these once prosperous Foundation Building families were taken over by the sect elder of the Purple River Sect. The process was as smooth as it could be.
Things somewhat got back to normal within the last two months after the Purple River Sect’s intervention. It eventually opened up the inheritance grounds once again, letting the drifting cultivators try their luck inside at a fixed cost.
As for why the Purple River Sect didn’t do anything before the Wilben family was destroyed? And why did it act only after Mantoyi Wilben was killed by Loren Lakir? Aksai didn’t explicitly ask these questions, and Jainam chose not to touch upon their answers either.
Spirit cultivators were a smart bunch. At least a majority of them. They could see how the Purple River Sect had basically caused a feud between the two well-established families and watched them tear at each other without doing much.
The sect only acted when it was convenient for it to act. And when it did, it managed to take complete ownership of the inheritance grounds.
This was how the big players in the cultivation world acted. And it was wise for the lower-level cultivators to ignore these “hidden games” as if they couldn’t see them at all.
One could call it a wilful blindness.